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As economic growth languishes and worries about the specter of deflation mount, much-needed infrastructure development and new sources of project financing could provide a panacea to global growth.

It is essential for companies to work with banking partners they know they can trust. Global Finance’s annual ranking of World’s Safest Banks have been the recognized and trusted standard of financial counterparty safety for more than 20 years.

This year, we updated the name of the awards to reflect the extent to which digitization is transforming our lives in general and banking in particular. By renaming this as the Digital Bank Awards, we are making the competition more inclusive of current technology and more future-focused in anticipation of developments still to come.

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A spate of high-level diplomatic contacts between the United States and Russia underscored America’s harder stance toward the Kremlin. During visits to Russia in early May, both Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and President George W. Bush took Russian President Vladimir Putin to task for his policies of centralizing power, clamping down on the independent media and his anti-oligarch campaign.

After months of uncertainty, in mid-May the Russian government announced that it would scrap plans to merge state oil company Rosneft with gas giant Gazprom. Instead of merging the two companies to raise the state’s stake in Gazprom to a majority holding, the government will pay some $7 billion for a 10.7% share held by the gas giant’s subsidiaries. The move should pave the way to the long-awaited liberalization of the market for Gazprom shares.

The spate of Russian corporates raising capital on international markets continued, with Pyaterochka Holding, the country’s largest supermarket chain, raising nearly $600 million in early May by selling a 30% stake to investors. Shares were sold at the bottom of the targeted price range but were nevertheless at a valuation premium to peers. A few weeks earlier carmaker Severstal-Avto raised $135 million in an IPO, although it also was forced to sell shares below its targeted price level. Meanwhile, Russia’s largest steelmaker, Evrazholding Group, announced plans to launch an IPO.

As investors awaited with baited breath the verdict in the trial of former Yukos head Mikhail Khodorkovsky, markets were shaken in mid-May by the announcement that electricity monopoly Unified Energy Systems faced a $131 million back-tax claim from 2001. While Putin’s control over his own tax authorities was beginning to look shaky, his influence in Russia’s backyard was also coming under renewed threat with unrest rocking Uzbekistan, as press reports indicated that hundreds died in anti-government protests.